Unforgiven (2002)
Unforgiven (2002) was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It took place on September 22, 2002, at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. It was the fifth annual Unforgiven event and featured wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown! brands. Eight professional wrestling matches were scheduled for the event—which featured a supercard, a scheduling of more than one main bout. The main event from the SmackDown! brand featured WWE Champion Brock Lesnar fighting The Undertaker to retain the title after both men were disqualified. After the match, The Undertaker continued to attack Lesnar, throwing him through the wall of a set. The main event from the Raw brand featured World Heavyweight Champion Triple H defeating Rob Van Dam to retain the title. Four matches were featured on the undercard. The first was a singles match where Chris Benoit defeated Kurt Angle. The next was between Trish Stratus and WWE Women's Champion Molly Holly, where Stratus won and captured the title. The third was a singles match between Eddie Guerrero and Edge, in which Guerrero won. The final featured undercard match had WWE Intercontinental Champion Chris Jericho defeating Ric Flair to retain the title. Storylines The event featured nine professional wrestling matches, with outcomes predetermined by WWE script writers. The matches featured wrestlers portraying their characters in planned storylines that took place before, during and after the event. All wrestlers were from one of the WWE's brands--SmackDown! or Raw—the two storyline divisions in which WWE assigned its employees. The main feud heading into Unforgiven on the SmackDown! brand was between The Undertaker and Brock Lesnar, with the two feuding over the WWE Championship. On the August 29 episode of SmackDown!, as Lesnar became an exclusive SmackDown wrestler, Stephanie McMahon made a single elimination series of matches to declare the number one contender for the championship. Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit made it to the final, but McMahon put the Undertaker in the match, which he then won. The following week, Lesnar and The Undertaker confronted each other. On September 12, during Undertaker's match with Matt Hardy, Lesnar threatened the Undertaker's wife, Sara, and attacked The Undertaker, when he tried to save her. The next week, The Undertaker tried to attack Lesnar, but was stopped by Lesnar's security. The main feud heading into Unforgiven on the Raw brand was between Triple H and Rob Van Dam for the World Heavyweight Championship. On September 2, Triple H was awarded the newly created World Heavyweight Championship by Eric Bischoff, and retained it against Ric Flair. However, Van Dam and Flair defeated Triple H and Chris Jericho in a tag team match, when Van Dam pinned Triple H. The next week, Van Dam defeated Jericho, Jeff Hardy, and Big Show in a fatal four-way elimination match to become the number one contender for the World Heavyweight Championship. Triple H cost Van Dam his WWE Intercontinental Championship against Jericho and in retaliation, Van Dam attacked Triple H during a title match with Jeff Hardy. Another main feud on the SmackDown! brand was between SmackDown General Manager, Stephanie McMahon and Raw General Manager Eric Bischoff. It all started when Billy and Chuck had a same-sex commitment ceremony on SmackDown. The priest of the ceremony was later to be revealed as Bischoff. He had Billy and Chuck attacked by 3 Minute Warning, setting up a tag team match scheduled for Unforgiven. If 3 Minute Warning won, Stephanie was forced to be the victim of some Hot Lesbian Action with two other women in their underwear. Had Billy and Chuck won, Bischoff would've had to kiss Stephanie's ass. Another feud on the Raw brand was between Molly Holly and Trish Stratus for the WWE Women's Championship. Four month's prior, Holly and Stratus began a feud which lead to a Women's Championship match between the two at King of the Ring in which at the event, Holly defeated Stratus to win the title. The following night on Raw, Holly proclaimed that she had bought dignity and respect back to the Women's Championship by not being a "tramp who sleeps her way to the top" referring to Stratus. On July 15, Holly successfully defended her title against Stratus. On September 2, Stratus and Bubba Ray Dudley defeated Chris Nowinski and Holly in a mixed tag team match. Aftermath Results Other on-screen personnel See also * List of WWE pay-per-view events * Unforgiven Category:Unforgiven Category:World Wrestling Entertainment pay-per-view events Category:2002 Pay-Per-View Events